A Towering Statement

To date, the search for successor structures to the World Trade Center and monuments to the victims of Sept. 11 has produced designs that neither persuade the onlooker of their utility nor lift our souls (July 17). They do not, in the familiar phrase, "make a statement."

Here is an alternative. Build two towers in place of the old ones, functionally and in appearance identical to their predecessors but with antiaircraft missile defenses on the roofs. That will make a statement.